thunderstrike
Americanverb (used with object)
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Archaic. to strike with a thunderbolt.
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to astonish; dumfound.
Etymology
Origin of thunderstrike
1605–15; probably back formation from earlier thunderstricken (adj.); see thunder, strike
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Meet Flora, travel with her, play the hypocrite, with smiles on my lips and hell in my heart,--or thunderstrike her at once with the truth;--what was I to do?
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 10, August, 1858 by Various
I have even read that various persons have found themselves under toxicological symptoms, and, as it were, thunderstricken by black-pudding that had been subjected to a too vehement fumigation.
From Madame Bovary by Eleanor Marx Aveling
I had hardly heard them when Millière fell as if thunderstricken.
From History of the Commune of 1871 by P. Lissagary
It was now time for the baronet to feel thunderstricken.
From Willy Reilly The Works of William Carleton, Volume One by William Carleton
Arvina, trembling with the deep consciousness of hospitality betrayed, and feeling the first stings of remorse already, stood thunderstricken, and unable to articulate.
From The Roman Traitor, Vol. 1 by Henry William Herbert
If Margaret"—glancing at her daughter, who stood white and thunderstricken at her side—"had behaved with submission and with modesty, I should not have had to inflict what seems to be considerable pain upon you.
From A True Friend A Novel by Adeline Sergeant
As if thunderstruck, Leontes becomes irredeemably convinced that Polixenes’ acquiescence reveals an adulterous relationship between the two.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
More than 90 million Americans watched, thunderstruck, as TV helicopters provided live shots of the action.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 12, 2024
And I’m really thunderstruck at the number of people who are shocked, shocked.
From Slate ● May 7, 2022
But he was "thunderstruck" when he heard the library faced closure.
From BBC ● Nov. 29, 2021
Cluny goggled in thunderstruck silence at the audacious Basil, who merely scowled in mock censure.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
